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Armada play mode: Sector War

Sometimes you look across the battlefield and see an almost bewildering array of named ships, officers & pilots facing off against each other (or themselves).Isn’t the galactic civil war meant to be an enormous conflict? How come we only ever seem to be seeing the bits of it that Yavaris, Ahsoka Tano and Shara Bay are involved in? The Correlian Conflict’s campaign mode deals with this by forcing each team to share out their factions named characters among them, so if you just had to deal with Mauler Mithel flying under Admiral Motti, at least you know he’s not also flying for Darth Vader on the other side of the sector.Other gaming systems also have ways to generate “Narrative Campaigns” which create persistence to in game events, impacting future battles which can be very interesting. We have aimed to bring this to Armada with the Sector War play mode.

A Sector War is a way of playing a series of linked games between 2 players. Each game will have a persisting impact on the development of the war and influence it’s eventual outcome.

Your Sector War consists of 3 phases:

The Massing

The Campaign – A series of 4 games that are played using the “Campaign” special rules.

The Final Confrontation – a climatic battle which will determine the outcome of the Sector War.

The Massing

In this phase the respective players make various selections which will set up their forces for the campaign:

Agree the number of Campaign games to be played – Sector War will work best with 3 or 4 games if you are using the Core Set’s 12 card mission deck. If you are using a larger mission deck you can add up to 1 extra Campaign game for every 3 extra missions.

Determine the Sector in which the conflict will take place from the list below, either randomly or by agreement.

Each player then nominates a number of Commander Upgrades equal to the Campaign length +1 to their Eligible Pool. These are the Commanders they will have access to during the Sector War. Note: some commanders (e.g. Darth Vader) have other card types in addition to a Commander upgrade. If you select them as a Commander, you will not be able to use any of the other versions of that named character during the Sector War.

Sectors

Corellia: This core system is home to large standing fleets: Base game 450 points fleet points.

Hoth: On the edge of the periphery, this is a backwater system by any standard: Base game 300 points fleet points.

The Maw: Bathed in dangerous radiations, Squadrons spend the minimum time possible in active operations: In all Games, all Ships must be deployed before Squadrons. Base game 400 points fleet points.

Mon Calamari: Any attempt to dislodge the natives from their Home World is going to require a massive commitment of forces: Base game size in the Campaign is 400 fleet points and in the Final Confrontation is 600 fleet points.

Toydaria: The natives have little love for lost causes. Base Game in the Campaign is 400 points. Nominate one player as the Toydarians: Every time this player wins a battle, the next game’s Fleet Points increases by 50 points. Every time they lose a battle, the next game’s Fleet Points decreases by 50 points.

Nal Hutta: In the Hutt home system, everyone wants a piece of the action. Base game 400 fleet points. Final confrontation 500 points. Each base game, players can field one additional unique squadron per base game but this squadron must be taken from the Rogues & Villains expansion.

Tatooine: Binary sunset. Base game 400 fleet points.Final Confrontation: Each of the 3′ edges of the play area are a Corona. Special Rule: While a ship is attacking, before resolving any attack effects, if any portion of the corona is inside the attacking hull zone’s firing arc, the attacker must discard 1 dice with an accuracy icon from the attack pool, if able.

Definitions:

Eligible Pool: All of your faction’s non-commander unique upgrades and unique squadrons start as available in that Fleet’s Eligible Pool. Upgrades equipped to a Ship that is destroyed are removed from that player’s Eligible Pool. Unique squadrons that are destroyed are removed from that player’s Eligible Pool. These upgrades and squadrons will not be available for future use in the Sector War.

Veteran Pool: Nothing starts in a player’s Veteran Pool. Unique squadrons that survive a battle, and unique upgrade cards equipped to a ship that survives a battle are promoted to that player’s Veteran Pool. Upgrades equipped to a ship that is destroyed are removed from that player’s Veteran Pool. Unique squadrons that are destroyed are removed from that player’s Veteran Pool. These upgrades and squadrons will not be available for future use in the Sector War.

The Campaign:

Games are played in the standard way, with the following modifications:

Each Player chooses a faction: Rebel Alliance or Galactic Empire. They will keep that Faction throughout the Sector War

Fleets are built to the Base fleet points limit set by the Sector. Each fleet build can contain only one unique Squadron, one unique Title upgrade, one unique Weapons Team upgrade, one unique Fleet Command upgrade and one unique Officer upgrade selected from your Eligible Pool, plus unlimited upgrades or squadrons chosen from your Veteran Pool. If you have a Commander in your Veteran Pool, that Commander must be used, otherwise select a new Commander from your Eligible Pool.

Missions are randomly dealt from the Mission Deck: The Mission deck initially consists of all the mission cards from the core.

Initiative is determined by points bid as normal.

A modified version of the retreat rules from Correllion Conflict will be in effect:

Retreating: During a battle, one or more ships may attempt to retreat to hyperspace. During the fourth and fifth rounds, when a ship activates and reveals its command dial, it may immediately declare a retreat and discard that dial. If that ship remains in the play area at the start of the Status Phase, remove that ship from the play area. It will count as destroyed when determining score, but it’s unique upgrades count as surviving the battle for the purposes of resolving the remainder of the Sector War Campaign rules.

Grav Well Interdiction: A ship cannot discard its dial to retreat to hyperspace if there is at least one enemy ship with the experimental upgrade icon in its upgrade bar at distance 1-5.

All Unique Squadrons and Unique upgrade cards that survived the battle are promoted from that player’s Eligible Pool to their Veteran Pool.

Any Unique Squadrons or Unique Upgrade Cards (including Commander) that are destroyed are removed from that player’s Eligible Pool or Veteran Pool, and cannot be used again by that player for the remainder of the Sector War.

Tournament scoring is used to determine the winner of each Campaign Game.

The Mission played is removed from the Mission Deck for the remainder of the Sector War.

The Winner and Loser of the game undertake the actions specified below.

Game Winner:

The player that won the game draws a card from the victory deck and nominates one of the two options. These options are modifications that change the rules for the Final Confrontation. The card is then removed from the Victory deck. All rules changes apply to both players. This is hidden information until the end of the Campaign, when the Victory Card selections are revealed.

Supplies Shortage: Players cannot use the discard powers of upgrades // Ample Munitions Each upgrade with a discard ability starts the game with an objective token on it. If an upgrade with an objective token on it would be discarded, instead remove the objective token. Upgrades that have had their objective token removed this turn cannot be used again until after the next Command phase.

The Dragon’s Nest – The Station obstacle has the following game text: allows you to recover a discarded defence token in addition to a hull point // Tansarii Point Station – The Station obstacle has the following game text: Ships bump the station like it was another ship: these bumps do not cause damage, does not obstruct shooting.

Deny them Respite: Place a “Mines” objective counter on each obstacle, When a Squadron ends it’s movement overlapping an obstacle with an objective counter it takes 2 Blue dice of damage. // Intensive Fire Drills: Each player starts the game with a 6 Concentrate Fire tokens assigned to this card. These can be spent to re-roll one anti-squadron or battery attack dice.

Role Specialisations: For each non-flottila ship nominate one of it’s upgrades which costs 4 points or less: This upgrade is free. // Personnel Influx: Fleets can contain 1 unique Officer, 1 unique Title, 1 unique Weapons Team and 1 unique Squadron from the Eligible Pool in addition to those selected from the Veteran Pool.

Bounty Hunters: Increase the Fleet points limit by +50, Fleets may include Unique Squadrons from the Rogues & Villains expansion from their Eligible Pool // We don’t need that Scum: Increase the Fleet points limit by +50, Fleets must purchase a second Commander. They gain the benefits of both Commanders.

Master of the Fleet – The Command value of Flagships is set to 1. Flagships can be assigned up to 4 command tokens, instead of a number of command tokens equal to their command value. / Strike off the Head – Increase the Hull value of Flagships by 3. When a Flagship is destroyed, the game ends at the end of that round, even if it is not turn 6.

Game Loser:

After each Campaign game, except for the last one, the player that lost the game looks at the Mission deck and removes 2 missions from it. The cards removed and the cards remaining are both secret information which the winner does not get to know. After the last campaign game reveal the Victory Cards selected.

The Final Confrontation:

The Final Confrontation is played in the standard way, with the following modifications:

Apply the Victory Card modifications chosen by the winner of each of the Campaign games.

The mission played is “Duel to the Death”:

Setup: Each Player’s Commander from their Veteran Pool must be assigned to their high points cost ship (including non-Commander upgrades). Ships with a Commander equipped are objective ships. The First Player’s first deployment must be their objective ship.

Special Rule:While a ship is attacking an objective ship, it may add 1 die of any color that is already in its attack pool to its attack pool.

End of Game: The fleet point cost of a destroyed objective ship is an extra 100 points.

Fleets will be built to the fleet point limit set by the Sector and as modified by any Campaign effects. Each fleet build can only contain unique Squadrons, unique Title, unique Weapons Team, unique Fleet Command and unique Officer upgrades from that player’s Veteran Pool.

Tournament scoring of the Final Confrontation is used to determine the winner of the Sector War.

Design Notes:

Thanks to Darth Veggie of the FFG forum for their input.This is our first iteration of Sector War, and it’s very much a work in progress. Our objectives for “Sector War” play mode:

Broaden the usage of unique upgrades: Titles, Officers, Squadrons

Create a sequence of linked games in which events in one have consequences in future games

Avoid Correlian Conflict’s snowball effect creating run-away winners

To be playable without the need of a non-gaming invigilator

Require not much more planning and set up than a normal game of Armada